


Pesche e Crema

by violentwhistles



Category: Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentwhistles/pseuds/violentwhistles
Summary: At some point, Armie knows he’s stopped pretending to be in love with Timmy.





	Pesche e Crema

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Pesche e Crema [Traducción]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060480) by [Dear_Rosie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dear_Rosie/pseuds/Dear_Rosie)



> RPF is a weird thing, so I would like to preface this by saying this is entirely fictional. If you know any of these people in real life, please turn back now.
> 
>  
> 
> [Also available in Russian thanks to Neverberrie!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/6505665)

It's entirely possible that Armie hadn’t thought this through. 

Before he signed on there had been a lot to consider. Mostly he had been thinking about what this movie would do to his reputation, how that would affect his career, the pros and cons of leaving his wife and toddler to shoot in Italy for three months, and whether or not he thought the movie would even be good, and the most essential question: if he thought he could do the role justice. 

"I'm worried it's not going to come across as authentic. What if I'm just not that good of an actor?" He says to Luca. 

Armie's making his way through JFK to his gate, phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. The plane takes off in an hour, and then he's on his way to Italy and it will be too late to back out. Technically, it's already too late. He's made his choice weeks ago, signed the contract, and booked the flight. But getting on the plane feels more final, because it means he's one step closer to having to act. He’s still not sure if he can do it. There's so much about Oliver that Armie still doesn't understand. Luca has so much faith in him and he doesn't want to disappoint. 

"Then don't act,” Luca says.  

"Don't act?" Armie repeats dumbly. In front of him, a mother is arguing with someone on her phone. Her two small children, a son and a daughter, are playing tug-o-war with a barbie doll behind her back.  

"If you're worried about it looking disingenuous, then make it genuine. Find things in Timothée to fall in love with." Luca says it like it's the most logical thing in the world. _Come to Italy, fall in love with a man. We've picked one out just for you_. 

The kids are no more than five or six years old. The girl has the doll clutched to her chest, but her brother has a good grip on it’s arm. She keeps pleading for him to leave her alone and he just wants her to share. Armie wants their mom to turn around and end this.

"You think love is really that simple?" He asks, distractedly.

There's a sickening pop, and suddenly the boy is holding just the arm of the doll. They've managed to rip it in half. The boy is on the ground and his elbow is bleeding, he must have caught it on the sharp corner of a chair. They both start to cry, and the mom finally turns around.

"Try," Luca says. 

* * *

The first month in Italy, Armie and Timothée spend a lot of time learning each other. There's not much in the way of friends in Crema, at least not ones that speak English, so they spend most of their free time together. They bike. They go jogging. They watch Netflix and drink wine. They talk about their childhoods, their careers, their passions. 

The kid- Timothée protests at that, he’s almost twenty, but he's still ten years younger than Armie, so he gets to call him a kid- is unpretentious yet cultured. He's serious without being overbearing. He’s so goddamn talented.

The first time Timothée practices piano with Armie in the apartment, Armie is meant to be studying lines. He keeps mixing up the order of a scene, so he’s trying to study, but he gets distracted watching Timothée play.

The first day they met, Armie had interrupted a piano lesson, but he hadn’t given it much thought. Now, it’s hard to look away.  Timothée plays with such grace, gentle fingers caressing the keys, despite the unconfident set of his shoulders. It’s hard to believe he’s only started playing two months ago.

Timmy catches him at it, blushing, “What?”

“Nothing,” Armie says, and forces himself to look back down at his script. He smiles anyway.

Armie learns that regardless of the medium, Timothée always performs with the same air of effortlessness.

Armie likes him. He knows they could be great friends. 

At first, that's the genuine extent of it. He doesn't find Timothée bad-looking, but he thinks he looks a bit alien, too harsh in his features, like a European model. Armie doesn't find him conventionally attractive most of the time, but at the right angle he almost understands the appeal. Timothée is more ethereal than he is attractive, like cherubs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Armie knows he's going to have to kiss him. It's been there, in the back of his mind, since Luca first said “gay romance” and Armie’s mind had derailed. It's technically not his first gay role, but he knows this is going to be different.

The book is intimate, both emotionally and pyschically. Oliver has such a raw tenderness woven into his character, obvious even in the most explicit of scenes. Armie wants Oliver's attraction to look authentic, so he tries to take Luca’s advice. 

He tries to find small physical things to focus on, things he thinks Oliver would fixate on in his desires of Elio. He's not sure what men appreciate in other men, so he tries to take in everything. Armie stares at the curve of Timothée's mouth, his thick brows, the dusting of freckles on the pale skin of his throat. He openly gawks at his high cheekbones and the razor-sharp cut of his jaw. Timmy is mature beyond his years but still incredibly boyish looking, bordering on androgynous. It's refreshing to work with someone so unique in their appeal, someone who breaks the mould of the current Hollywood typecast.

For all Armie’s staring, at some point his attraction has turned into something real and palpable. He feels it in the fluttering of his nerves under his skin and sweat of his palms. Feels it when Timmy speaks Italian on set and French on the phone with his mother. He _likes_ him.

Eventually and without his knowledge, Armie realized he’s not making a conscious decision to find Timmy attractive anymore.

* * *

When they first rehearse, nearly three weeks later, it's at the villa. Luca leads them through the house to the backyard, gives them the page number and scene, and says, "Whenever you're ready."

Their only direction is [ _They roll in the grass, kissing_ ] because Luca is some sort of sadist.  

So Armie sinks inelegantly to the ground, sprawls out and falls back onto his elbows.  Timmy sits down next to him, gingerly. 

Luca stands by their feet expectantly. Armie looks between Luca and Timmy, laughing nervously. This part of acting is always weird, but for the first time he’s sort of looking forward to the awkward thrill of it. The grass tickles against his forearms, and he can’t find it within himself to make the first move.

"Okay, I'm just gonna-" Timothée finally breaks. 

Timothée leans over, hand on Armies shoulder, but it's the force of a surging kiss that knocks Armie flat into his back. It's awkward in the way that all first kisses are, before you know how you fit together. The first press of Timothée’s lips against his is odd and foreign. Timmy doesn't have much in the way of stubble, but he's still undeniably male, the sharp angles of his face and hands. He smells like citrus and firewood. Like orange and lemon peels, thrown into a bonfire.

Their mouths move together slowly and carefully, with the barest hint of tongue, like they're both trying not to make any sudden movements.

Timmy climbs into his lap, awkwardly long frail limbs fumbling towards him. Armie reaches out to help steady him, puts a hand on his leg and is surprised and unexpectedly aroused when he finds the width of his palm almost covers the breadth of Timmy's thigh.

They kiss until it stops being strange, until Armie has lost himself to the slow heat of it and allowed himself to enjoy the taste of Timmy's tongue in his mouth, the size difference between them, the scent of citrus and the dark woody undertone.  

Eventually Timmy pulls back, because they can't kiss forever, but he hovers over Armie and breathes into his mouth. This close, Armie can see the brilliant greens of his eyes, the sharp lines of his mouth and the soft curls of Timmy's dark hair spilling down towards him. Looking at him this close feels more intimate than kissing. 

Timmy smiles then, "That wasn't so bad."

"Nah, it was fun."

When Timmy pulls away, Armie realizes the sky has turned orange above them and Luca is gone. 

* * *

Timothée is a lot of things that Armie is not. He's young, thin, and still awkward in his own skin. He's intelligent, but he gets nervous and fumbles over his words. His talent is undeniable, the raw emotion he brings to set and his utter shameless when it comes to filming scenes that fill Armie with anxiety and dread. He's going to be a huge success and everyone believes in him, because how could they not?

Timothée talks about his parents sometimes, how their support and encouragement has allowed him to come so far. It elicits a dark twist of jealousy in Armie's gut, because Armie has never had the luxury of being close with his father or known what that unconditional love is like. 

It's jarring too, because it reminds him further of the parallels between Elio and Timothée and Oliver and Armie. 

Oliver’s distant unapproving father, the too young boy staring at him like he's hung the stars in the sky, eating gelato under the scorching sun, a man's tongue licking the taste of apricots from his mouth, long thin fingers ghosting all over his body, the threat of the end of summer rapidly approaching. A woman waiting for him back in the United States. It all belongs to Armie now just as much as it does Oliver. 

It becomes easy to lose himself in filming something authentic. It becomes hard to remember what is Armie and what is Oliver. The line between actors and characters is blurred and porous, emotions bleeding over lines they aren’t meant to cross.

At some point, Armie knows he’s stopped pretending to be in love with Timmy. 

* * *

Tension is high towards the end of filming. Everyone knows there's only days left. They've all got different projects rapidly approaching, starting to be pulled in different directions.

Armie hadn't mean to, but he's already detaching himself. Trying to preserve whatever he's got left, so he can go to his next project with a headspace that isn't _this._

Luca fights him, pushes him, because he tells Armie, "You can do better. You're closing down and the camera can tell."

And eventually Armie snaps, in front of Luca, in front of Timothée, in front of the entire crew.

"I'm closed down because I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to walk away from this." Armie didn't mean to raise his voice, but he has. He is so thoroughly tired, physically and emotionally, and feels it in every fiber of his being, taut with stress. 

"Good," Luca says, "Now tell that to him."

Armie follows his gesture, turns to face Timmy. Timmy has his arms crossed, sort of hunched like he’s folding in on himself, but looking at Armie with such open concern. It’s a testament to how far Armie’s gone that even this tugs at his heartstrings.

Armie bites the inside of his cheek, takes a deep breath and confesses, quieter this time, "I don't know how to walk away from this."

Timmy steps closer, not quite touching, "If it helps, I don't know how either. We’ll figure it out when we get there." 

Armie isn't sure if he should hug him or kiss him. He's not sure if he wants Timmy's skin under his hands at all. It seems almost self-mutilating to let himself continue to indulge in something that's going to be taken away from him forever in a week. 

So he doesn't move, just looks at Timmy until Luca asks them to take the scene from the top. 

"Use that fear. Turn it into Oliver's." Luca's voice is a million miles away. 

The crew is shifting into position and only then does Armie break Timothée’s gaze. Not everything between the two of them is meant for the camera. 

* * *

The night before they leave the crew gets together at Luca's for dinner. It's a huge party, filled with endless wine and pasta to die for. He drinks more than he should because he’s sad and the movie is over so he doesn't have to look good shirtless anymore. It's doesn't have anything on the time he had too much vodka in Russia, but it's safe to say he's fairly inebriated. 

There's too many people in the house, and eventually the heavy crowd gets to him. Almost everyone is drunk, speaking in too loud Italian, and Armie wants to find Timothée, if only to have someone to talk to in English. He’s drunk enough to admit he wants to find him for a lot of other reasons too.  

He finds Timmy smoking on the balcony.

"Those’ll kill you, you know."

Timothée is leaning over the railing, but turn his head back to look at him. The angles of his face look even sharper in the moonlight. He smiles when he sees Armie. "Fuck off." 

Timmy extends the cigarette toward him, and Armie takes it without forethought. He thinks at this point he would take anything Timmy was willing to give him. 

And because he's drunk, it seems like a good idea to tell this to Timmy, "I'd take anything you're willing to give me."

Timmy raises an eyebrow at that, glancing over at Armie. "Now I know I'm drunk, but you're  _drunk_."

Armie flicks the ashes over the edge of the balcony as he exhales, "I am. I'm going to fucking miss you. Miss this. "

"I'm not going anywhere," Timmy says quietly. They stand there, under the stars for a few moments of blissful silence, “I guess it will be different though. Are all movies like this?”

“No. I’ve never done anything like this.” Armie thinks in the light of the morning he might regret his honesty.

Then Timothée turns around, his back against the railing, but face towards Armie. He’s just looking, but Armie can’t meet his gaze, already feels naked and exposed.

"Kiss me. For us, this time."

Armie’s lost the ability to breathe, the ability to reason, or remember why they don’t. He moves without thinking, takes a side step, trapping Timmy between the railing and his body. 

He trails his fingers down the curve of Timmy’s jaw, his Adam's apple, down to the silk of his shirt. 

Armie kisses him and it’s like opening a floodgate. It feels like so much more than just a rough press of their lips, made clumsy by the wine. Timothée’s mouth is hungry against him, his tongue hot and demanding. Armie feels it all the way down his spine. He licks into Timmy’s mouth and tastes nothing but skin, smoke, and merlot.

All of their kisses so far have been slow, purposefully languid for the cameras and the artistic appeal. When Armie presses his mouth against Timmy now, he feels rushed. He grabs at the narrow bones of Timmy's hips with frenzied hands. Like they only have seconds left. Armie feels the wild beat of his own pulse, like his heart is threatening to break free of his rib cage and throw itself at Timothée’s feet.

He can hear the clamour of the party behind them. Anyone could look out the glass doors and see them. Armie is sure if anyone did, he would be ruined. He knows there isn’t any way someone could see this and not see straight through him.

He knows he's not going to get this again, and he wants to memorize everything about this moment. It's the only time they've kissed without the premise of rehearsal or someone else present. There are no excuses for this. 

When Armie inhales, trying to combat the light-headedness threatening to consume him, he can smell the familiar scent of oranges. He thinks Timmy may have ruined fruit for him forever. 

Timothée slows down the kiss, pulling away to trail his fingers over Armie's cheek. It's only then, when he feels the damp drag of Timmy's thumb, that he realizes he's crying. 

The half cigarette in Armie's hand has long gone out, so he drops it to the ground unceremoniously. 

He takes a deep shuddering breath, and moves back to Timothée’s side. Armie stares up at the stars instead of having to look at whatever expression is on Timothée’s face. 

"We're going to be okay," Timmy says. He sounds breathless and unsure. Armie wants to believe him. 

"Okay. Okay."

It's the last time they kiss. 

* * *

Coming back home is so much harder than leaving was. He feels the absence of Timothée everywhere, tainting everything he does. Liz knows, he’s sure of it, because she knows him inside and out. She’d picked him up at the airport, taken one look at him and said, _“Oh,_ Armie. _”_ There was more in those two words than he ever wants to discuss or acknowledge. He's eternally grateful she doesn't try to talk about it. 

He loves his Liz, and he loves Harper, loves their soon-to-be-born son. He wouldn't trade any of it for the world.

He just wishes he had known all of his options before he made his choice.

* * *

Timothée texts him all the time, and Armie finds a sort of perverse comfort in knowing that Timothée misses him too. They're good friends, bonded together over something that no one else will ever understand. But at the end of the day, he spent months with Timothee's tongue in his mouth, his fingers grasping at Oliver and Armie's billowy cotton shirts. It's hard to backpedal to be only friends with someone who you've almost, albeit accidentally, gotten off. 

Sometimes when Armie is alone in the shower, he thinks back to Crema.

There was one day where they’d been kissing, filming a make out scene from a hundred different angles for what had to have been two hours. He's not sure if the scene was necessary, or if it even made it in the movie at all. He just remembers the soft grass under his shoulders, the too warm weight of Timothée pressed against his front. He had one hand at the small of Timothée back, sweat damp and impossibly hot. He'd been trying to pull Timothée closer, even though they were already touching everywhere. He remembers the press where Timothée was hard against his own erection, and how he’d been almost used to it at that point.  

They'd been kissing slow and lazily with a sort of undulating roll of their bodies. Somewhere along the way it had turned into an unintentional soft grind. It had been too hot to do anything else other than lie there, to push Timothée’s hair out of the way with one hand and pull in his hips with the other. 

Armie remembers pushing his hips up, shoving them together because he'd been fighting his instincts for two torturous hours, and Timothée going still against him. He'd been worried he'd taken it a step too far, been a bit too aggressive.

He was waiting for a fight, surprised when instead Timothée had gasped into his mouth, _“Time out, Time out,"_ and released his fingers from Armie's shirt, rolling off and away. 

Armie couldn’t disguise the way he was panting, trying to remember how to breathe. He turned his head to Timmy, who was been lying flat on his back with his eyes closed. 

"You good?" He asked tentatively. Timothée’s lashes looked so dark compared to his pale complexion.

"A little too good, actually. Just need a second." Timothée cleared his throat awkwardly. 

It was like a punch to a gut how turned on Armie was. Timmy insinuating that he could come in his pants, just from this.  He wanted it. He wanted to roll over, press Timothee into the grass and roll their hips together with purpose, finish this thing they’ve started and stopped so many times. He wanted to watch him shudder to pieces under him, take him apart with his hands.  He considered it for a full thirty seconds. He wondered if Elizabeth would forgive him.

"Why'd you stop?" Luca yelled over at them. 

Armie had forgotten there were other people there, much less cameras. The world felt like it had been narrowed down to the two of them. 

"Just taking a breather," Armie said, loud enough for Luca to hear. 

Timothée opened his eyes then, "Are you trying to kill me?"

And because Armie had been reading the book, been poring over the script, he said the first thing that came to his mind, "You'll kill me if you stop."

Timothee had laughed at that, deep and carefree. 

Now, Armie comes with a hand around his cock, lukewarm water beating down on his head, the memory playing like a broken record in his head and Timmy’s name on his lips.

* * *

He throws himself into exercise. He goes to the gym six days a week, and tears his muscle straight off his skeleton. He texts Timmy as soon as it happens, though he doesn’t know the extent of the damage yet, the awkward twinge in his arm at the gym. 

_I think I fucked up my arm._

_Go to the doctor. Better safe than sorry._ Timmy replies. 

_Nah, I think I'll be okay._

When he sends Timmy a photo of the discoloration a few days later, Timmy calls him instead. 

"You're an idiot," Timmy’s voice is soft, unbearably fond despite his chastising. 

"Yeah, but you knew that. You love it."

Timothée makes an agreeable hum, "I do."

Armie swallows and ignores the way his heart is trying to crawl out of his throat. “Have you ever seen someone want something so badly they ruin themselves?”

“Is this about your arm? You that obsessed with bulking up?” Timmy asks. 

 _No. This is about my heart_ . He wants to say _._  He thinks Timmy gets it anyway.Instead he tells him about the kid in JFK with the bloody elbow and one arm of a doll.

* * *

They do a lot of press. And then they do more press. And more press. Armie's never done this much press in his life. He tries hard to mix it up, tell new stories and reveal new information even after they've been doing this for almost a year. 

“We rehearsed all the time. I mean, I couldn’t appreciate the compliment about the chemistry more because, like, I fell in love with Timmy in the process of making the movie. He’s fuсking terrific and he’s also an incredible actor, so I had all of that." 

Armie says a lot of things that should be damning. Things that should make people pause, question where he's coming from and why he won't shut up about Timothée. He makes a lot of confessions to interviewers and cameras that he's never said out loud to anyone, not to himself and not to his wife and certainly not to Timmy. No one calls him on it.

"People are shipping you, I'm shipping you-" The interviewer is gushing, excited to be the first to bring this up. 

"Well, you're lucky because this love's as real as it gets." It's joking, it's light, it's forced bravado. It’s the truth.

It’s been almost a year and when Timothée laughs awkwardly at his answer, Armie still feels like it was yesterday. The cicadas in Crema, Timothée warm and pliable under him, laughing into his mouth between takes.

He doesn’t know how to untangle himself from what he created in Italy. He doesn’t know how to extrapolate back and be who he used to be before the movie and before Timothée.

It's entirely possible that Armie hadn’t thought this through.

 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [here](https://violentwhistles.tumblr.com/)!


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